Unclassified problem on the 2016 Kia Soul
9 crashes 7 fires 8 injuries 24 of the 72 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 30 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Kia Soul report unclassified problem at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 105,000 miles, from 30 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 71st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 20,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 130,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 110,073 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
23% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20,427 miles | 60,264 miles | 80,210 miles | 106,057 miles | 130,500 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 9 a crash, 7 a fire and 8 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 2016 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
The 2016 kia soul owners manual has false, misleading and incorrect information. Before purchasing this new kia soul in 12/16 I looked through the cars owners manual. Something that caught my eye and helped sway me to purchase this car was the information in section 8 page 15 under online factory authorized manuals (u.s. Only) it states that the following publications are available on www.kiatechinfo.con at no charge. Service manual, electrical troubleshooting manual, owners manual. If you visit that site www.kiateahinfo.com the first screen that pops up states that effective october 17,2014 the site has been changed to a subscription-based pay per use site. Kia refuses to honor the information in the 2016 owners manual stating that this information is provided free of charge. This inaccurate and misleading information needs to honored buy kia motors and this and any future inaccurate information in the kia supplied owners manual needs to be corrected prior to the sale of any and all kia automobiles.
All interior windows fogged up making it impossible to see outside vehicle. I was driving the vehicle early morning, mid to low 60 degree temps, I put heat on low fan speed and mid temp, instrument panel started to fog up and windshield started to fog up, I switched heater to defog and in a few seconds all windows fogged up. It was dark and I was in a roundabout with traffic ahead of me and behind me. I opened all windows and put defog to full speed and after about a minute was the windshield defogged. Internet search showed possible clogged heater/AC blower box, which was reported to be a service issue and not covered by warranty. I was about to park the vehicle and was very concerned about my safety and my family being in the vehicle. Something needs to be done to address this issue that will lead to vehicle collision with injury and.or fatalities.
Key will get stuck in ignition after putting vehicle in park and attempting to remove key after turning key to off position. Key will also not turn when attempting to turn on vehicle. Vehicle was stationary and parked on both occasions. The inability to remove the key from the ignition happened in november of 2016. The inability to turn the key to start the car has happened at least 5 separate times. Most recently was saturday, july 15, 2017 and I was at a hiking trail in the mountains.
Also reported on the 2016 Kia Soul
Other engine problem
Catalytic converter failure
Excessive oil consumption
Other fuel system problem
Other electrical problem
Overheating
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 72 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 72 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does unclassified problem happen on the 2016 Kia Soul?
Across 30 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 105,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2016 Kia Soul?
72 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed